Raptor: Red Tooth
This is essentially the saga of the raptor that ended up killing Helen Cutter and saving the human race. The idea randomly came to me while rewatching the Season 3 finale. I think it's fairly original. Prologue: The Slaughter The gorgonopsid was still chasing her in the Permian era. Helen thought it had lost her trail months before. It had completely destroyed her little treehouse that had taken so long to build and now it wanted revenge. How should she have known that gorgonopsids actually take care of their eggs? It was just a random nest that was practically screaming "BREAKFAST!" to her growling stomach. Her stomach wasn't the only thing that was growling. After finding the mysterious destroyed camp, she had taken an AK-47 and some bullets for protection, and she had taken two months to learn how to fire it. Now she knew it might be time to use it. She ran through the protective cover of the trees as the annoying little Coelosauravis' swooped about. She hated Coelosauravis'. The gorgonopsid crashed through the trees behind her. She grabbed a stick and threw it at the hideous thing, buying her time until she had enough range to fire the gun. Then, she noticed a flickering light. She did a double take. A gateway? And it was closing. She ran for it as the gorgonopsid lunged, clawing her in the back. She screamed and fell through, firing a round at the gorgonopsid. It leaped back, then poked it's head back through… …just as the anomaly closed and beheaded it. Helen breathed a sigh of relief and then looked around. She was in a strange forest with ancient-looking trees. Nick would probably know what they were. Nick. She was busy thinking about him. Too busy to see the raptor. Tensum Plumis T'Aleph was the first to see the Featherless Raptor Who Called Down Thunder emerge from the Moon Shards That Sat On Dirt. She carried a stick and her skin seemed to be strangely loose-fitting in places and coloured differently than parts around her head, hands and legs. She had no feathers except for the long, stringy ones on her head and she seemed to have no claws and a flat face and teeth, except for a nose that stuck out a bit, not as far as other raptor's noses. But the strangest thing was the monster that chased her, which Tensum would call the Sky Giant* That Walked On Four Legs And Had Horncrest Spikes For Teeth. Featherless Raptor, who would later be forever known as the Thunder Slayer, used her magical stick to call down thunder upon the Four-Legged Sky Giant - more of an Earth Giant, really - and slay it. But no, not slay it - it lunged back, but the Moon Shards were angry now. They closed in and cut off it's head, and the head fell and lay there in the dirt. The Moon Shards were gone, vanished to the Invisible Place Beyond The Moon from where they came. But the Featherless Raptor was still there. Tensum was fearful and he fled to the heart of Clan Aleph to find the Nesting Grounds where he could report the strange events to Aleph-khan Cælum Benator, leader of Clan Aleph, who would know what to do next. With her age and wisdom, maybe she would even know what the Featherless Raptor and the Earth Giant were. But Tensum shamefully admitted to himself that he was fleeing out of fear of the thunderstick. Helen heard a stick snap and saw the raptor fleeing. She wasn't much of an expert, but she could recall that raptors lived in packs. This one was probably reporting her to the others. Unless she dealt with it, she would be killed. She grabbed up her gun and kicked the gorgonopsid's head onto it's side, then ran after the raptor. Aleph-khan Benator was intrigued by Tensum's reports. "I have seen the Featherless Raptors before, though I called them the Naked Ones. They too had loose-fitting skin, long, strandy hair on their heads and they too wielded these thundersticks, but not all of them spat thunder - a few spat darts that made you sleep. They lived in a world made of metal and strange ice that didn't melt on the other side of the Moon Shards, these ones in the Drylands. My mate, my child and I went there, but my mate went mad and killed my child. Then the Moon Shards slaughtered him in the same way this Earth Giant was killed." Benator finished her tale and Tensum was shocked. "Why did you never tell us?" Benator ruffled her head feathers, the equivalent of a shrug. "Why did you never ask?" Tensum "shrugged" as well. "I suppose that I can't argue with that, noble Aleph-khan." Tensum attempted to "bow." "Do not bow," Benator ordered, "tell me, where is this Naked One now?" Tensum didn't need to answer. There was a sound of thunder and a warrior, Acutus Unguis, ran into the small stick hut. There was a moment of silence, and then Acutus collapsed. He had been struck in the back by the lightning of the thunderstick. "Under…" he moaned, "Clan… Aleph… under… attack… thunder…" And then he was gone. "Sound the alarms," ordered Benator, "the clan is at war." The raptors were coming from everywhere. Helen must have accidentally stumbled onto their nesting grounds. She fired her AK-47 at three incoming raptors and cut them down with one shot. They kept coming and she kept firing. They were blasted back and blood stained the ground crimson. The entire pack was converging on the nesting grounds, desperate to defend their eggs. Helen kept shooting and shooting, and they kept dying. After about ten minutes, the gun was empty and there was not a single living raptor left. She looked at the eggs and cracked one open. The embryo was barely formed and there was a large yolk. She ate it, and then she realized how hungry she was. There was fresh meat everywhere and eggs ready for eating. Then, she laughed, she laughed for what felt like hours. This was fun. That was the start of it. Killing was fun. Eventually, she discovered a way back home, but the world refused to accept her, so she left. In the Cretaceous, she met the Time Tribe, other people who were lost in time, and she became a leader among them. She met a man who shared her belief that killing was enjoyable, Ethan Dobrowski. The Time Tribe remained in the Cretaceous for two years, and Helen began to plot the ultimate kill. She was going to wipe out the human race and the Future Predators that would follow. Little did Helen know that one tiny little raptor hatchling survived. His name was Talon, and he hated Helen for killing his father and for killing all of the clan. And he formed his own pack of outcasts from other clans and lone raptors, and he survived mostly alone, but he knew that one day he would get his revenge. A few notes | * Sky Giant = T. rex, to clarify Chapter 1: Survival of the Fittest Clans Beth and Gimel were at war again. They wanted Talon's hunting grounds. Talon refused to surrender them, but the clans outnumbered him twenty to one. He was pondering the next decision when Brokenhand arrived. Brokenhand had barely survived a fight with a Sailback two moons before and it cost him a hand and nearly his life. As a result, he had been exiled from Clan Beth, because they had no room for Brokens, as crippled raptors were called. Talon's pack was his only hope. He had originally been from a rogue pack before joining Beth so he felt right at home. Brokenhand "bowed" to Talon. "Leader," he announced, "a rogue band of Tree Raiders has been sighted in our territory. Permission to lead the pack against it?" Talon "nodded" his approval. "I won't permit those creatures on our land," he decided, "and besides, some of our clan members could stand a little practice. I will lead the hunt." Brokenhand "bowed" again. "As you wish, leader." Brokenhand ran off to find the patrol and Talon ended his musing for now to join the hunt. Maybe it would help take his mind off political matters. Suddenly, he heard a strange noise and there was a flickering light. He turned, but it had vanished. Something moved in the bushes, but Talon dismissed it as another Furback. They had been getting larger and more dangerous lately, but it was nothing to worry about, hopefully. He knew that this was a bad time to be musing about such things, especially when he was on a hunt. But somehow, he thought he should have got a closer look. The Tree Raiders had killed several prey creatures belonging to Talon's pack. It was time for them to pay. Talon rushed to the scene and discovered a dead Skywing being feasted on by a Tree Raider. They had obviously killed it. Talon snarled at the Raider. "This," he growled, "IS NOT YOUR LUNCH!" He lunged at the Raider. One raptor against a Tree Raider doesn't have much of a chance, but Brokenhand and Quill leaped at it from behind and the Tree Raider was killed before it even realized that there was a raptor behind it. In the trees, other Tree Raiders started leaping down. The raptors jumped at them and struggled to climb into the trees, and so the real fight began. On Talon's left, Brokenhand, Quill and a relatively new recruit, Longfang, were battling to get the Tree Raiders away from the kill. On his other side, Nightrunner and his younger brother Scarback, who had a scar reaching across most of his back and neck due to a battle to save Nightrunner from a Tall Raptor rogue, were trying to reach the pack alpha, who was issuing orders to the rest of the Raider pack in their almost unintelligible language. Talon decided to go help Scarback and Nightrunner, because if they removed the source of the commands, the rest of the pack would panic and be easy to control. Talon charged to the right and shoved one Raider to the ground, breaking it's neck on the rocks below. Then, Talon realized that the drop had gotten higher. They were on a tree branch overlooking a very impressive waterfall. This was the Sailback's hunting grounds, so they had to be careful. The alpha was at the top of the tree, which meant leaping two and a half metres up over a raging waterfall, then climbing four metres to the alpha's nest, all while fighting the other Tree Raiders who were infinitely better at fighting in the trees. Talon sighed. This was turning out to be a very tiresome day. Emily looked up to the trees cautiously. It had been four months since the Time Tribe had been stranded here in the Late Cretaceous and they were still at the mercy of the Tree Creepers. She almost wished they'd stayed in the ash-choked, apocalyptic Late Cretaceous/Early Paleocene wasteland with those hideous… things. Or the Early Cretaceous junction of gateways despite the Albertosaurus pack. She grinned when she remembered chopping off that pack leader's arm, but admittedly it had frightened her when Ethan tried to eat it. The snap of a twig brought her back to the present. She needed to focus or people could get eaten. "Are we there yet?" asked Charlotte. Emily shook her head. "Little further. Trust me, this camp is nowhere near the ocean. It won't get flooded." Behind her, Jason snarled. "It wasn't the hurricane that caused all the trouble. Is the Spinosaurus it washed ashore going to be a bother?" Emily doubted it. Still, it pays to be cautious. Therefore, she had made sure they crossed a sizeable river to get to the new site. Of course, the Spinosaurus never would have survived the hurricane if it had been unable to swim. In the distance, she heard a Tree Creeper distress call. Then, she noticed that there were no raptors in the area. This region belonged to a small pack. Emily leaped and scampered up a tree before anyone could stop her. The raptors were attacking the Tree Creepers. That probably wouldn't end well for the raptors. Talon leaped as far as he possibly could. He would have fallen to his death, but he struck a Tree Creeper which took the fall for him. His right foot clutched a branch and he clung on tight, but the Tree Creepers moved steadily closer. Scarback climbed towards the alpha, and Nightrunner attacked the Tree Creepers moving for Talon. While they were occupied, Talon clung on to the wood and started climbing. The alpha continued issuing commands and loomed over Talon's head like a harbinger of doom. Scarback was coming up behind while Talon distracted the beast. A Tree Creeper came up behind and Talon slashed at it with his toe claws, sending it flying to a doom far below. The Sailback swallowed it in one gulp. That was not good. The Sailback roared and lunged for the tree. The Time Tribe reached the little hill and they started to set up camp. Emily stroked her pet Heterodontosaurus, Henry. The ugly but loveable creature had been destined for the belly of a Dilophosaurus until Emily saved him. She nearly lost an arm. They'd been inseparable ever since. She surveyed the area. No obvious evidence of large predators. Smaller ones, on the other hand… well, they'd find out soon enough. "Emily!" yelled Charlotte, "come and take a look at this. Emily walked towards where Charlotte's voice had come from… and found a gateway. Chapter 2: The Sailback Work in progress Category:Stories Category:Raptor saga